1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electrical connector assemblies and is concerned more particularly with an electrical connector provided with an adaptor for mounting the connector readily on a supporting printed circuit board.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In electrical apparatus, dense packaging of electrical circuitry has been achieved by wide spread use of printed circuit boards having a plurality of conductors plated in insulating spaced relationship with one another on a planar dielectric substrate. Electrical components of the circuitry may be mounted on one or both extended flat surfaces of the dielectric substrate and connected directly to the printed circuit conductors by means of holes extended through the thickness of the board. The printed circuit conductors may be routed to respective terminal holes disposed in a predetermined pattern in a marginal portion of the board for electrical connection to respective terminals of an electrical connector mounted on the board. Thus, the connector on the board may be mated with a similarly configured connector on an adjacent end portion of an electrical cable for feeding electrical energy to connecting conductors of the printed circuit board.
However, the printed circuit board may be disposed in an array of substantially parallel and closely spaced printed circuit boards whereby only edge portions of their dielectric substrates are accessible from externally of the array. Consequently, a printed circuit board generally has its board connector mounted on a marginal portion of the dielectric substrate and has the mating end portion of the board connector facing outwardly of the adjacent edge of the board. As a result, the mating contact members in the body of the board connector are disposed substantially parallel to the dielectric substrate of the printed circuit board, and require right-angle terminal means for connection to respective terminal holes in the dielectric substrate. Moreover, if the board connector has a configuration, such as cylindrical, for example, which does not conform readily to the planar dielectric substrate, auxiliary hardware and tools may be required for mounting the board connector as desired, such as tangentially to the dielectric substrate, for example. Thus, the mounting of the board connector on the dielectric substrate of the printed circuit board may require an excessive expenditure of time and labor which significantly increase the cost of producing the resulting printed circuit board assembly.